COURSE WORKS AND CLASS EXERCISES.

"TRUE FREEDOM AND WILL"

Man clings to the fact that the will is free because they are directly or in directly aware of the freedom of their own decision by direct i mean that simply because they are directly aware of their freedom in the very act of making a free decision and indirect because of many instance of behaviors which can only be explained by admitting the freedom of the will.

CAT TO BE SUBMITTED TO

REV.DR. MATELA EDWARD

POPE FRANCIS’ ECCLESIOLOGY OF REFORM AND ITS CHALLENGES

1.0 INTRODUCTORY PART

1.1 Meaning of Ecclesiology

Ecclesiology is the study of the church. The word Ecclesiology comes from two Greek words meaning "assembly" and "word" - combining to mean "the study of the church." The church is the assembly of believers who belong to God. Ecclesiology is crucial to understand God's purpose for believers in the world today. Some important issues in Ecclesiology are; What, who founded the Church and when? What Ecclesiology helps us to understand the role of the church and our role in the church. It teaches us about the ordinances of the church, how church leadership is to be chosen and structured, and what the church is to be doing in regards to believers and also Biblical understanding of the Church and lastly how to correct many of the common problems in churches today.

1.2 Brief Back Ground of Pope Francis

Pope Francis born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on the 17^th December 1936 is the 266th and current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Pope Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and the first Pope from outside Europe since Syrian Gregory III. Throughout his public life, Pope Francis has been noted for his humility, emphasis on God's mercy, concern for the poor, populist causes and commitment to interfaith dialogue. He is credited with having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors, for instance choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors. He maintains that the church should be more open and welcoming. He does not support unbridled capitalism, Marxism, or Marxist versions of liberation theology.

1.3 Uniqueness of Pope Francis’ Ecclesiology

Pope Francis With His Unique Ecclesiology though He has maintained the traditional views of the church regarding abortion, euthanasia, contraception, homosexuality, ordination of women, and priestly celibacy the first Jesuit pope and the first non-European pope in more than 1,200 years, has however differed significantly from his predecessors in unique ways such as; his outspoken style and his approach to leading the church, his comments on poverty, church reform, climate change and divorce which have made headlines around the world. His Ecclesiology is always driving towards the change and reform within the Church this can also be seen when He Criticized the “Cult of Money” Driving the World Financial System. In a speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See in May 2013, Francis spoke of the need for more ethics in finance.“We have created new idols, he said. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”[1]

1.4 Pope Francis’ Political and Leadership visions

After some few month in His Papacy, in a challenge to the Vatican hierarchy, Pope Francis called for decentralizing power in the church, saying the Vatican and even the pope must collaborate with bishops, laypeople and in particular women. Francis replaced traditionalists with moderates as the church was preparing for important debates about the Vatican's decision making process and the nature of the family. He also started to break up the rival blocs of Italians with entrenched influence in the Roman Curia, the Vatican administration. He increased financial transparency in the Vatican Bank and upended the career ladder that many prelates have spent their lives climbing.

1.5 Pope Francis’ contribution towards world peace and diplomacy.

In building the world Peace and Political stability Pope Francis endorsed the State of Palestine this was publically witnessed when He put himself directly into the collapsed Middle East peace process in May 2014, issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit meeting at his apartment in the Vatican.Pope Francis took the unexpected step in Bethlehem, where he became the first pontiff ever to fly directly into the West Bank and to refer to the Israeli-occupied territory as the “State of Palestine”. After describing the overall situation between Israel and the Palestinians as “increasingly unacceptable,” the Pope made a dramatic, unscheduled stop at Israel’s contentious concrete barrier separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem, where he prayed and touched his head to the graffiti-covered wall. Not only that, but also in the field of international diplomacy, he helped to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba.

2.0 POPE FRANCIS’S ECCLESIOLOGY OF REFORM

2.1 Ecclesiology of reform as taken from Amoris Laetitia of Pope Francis

My focus in this paper will be enshrined and developed from the Ecclesiology of Pope Francis as written in one of his documents called “Amoris Laetitia” or the joy of Love which has been greatly considered as the most ecclesiology of reform by His holiness Pope Francis. Amoris laetitia is a post-synodal apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis. Dated 19 March 2016, it was released on 8^th of April 2016. It follows the Synods on the Family held in 2014 and 2015.This apostolic exhortation on love in the family, Amoris Laetitia, is a landmark document not only for the pontificate of Francis, but also in the history of modern papal teaching.This is not simply because of its approach to the hot-button issues of marriage and sexuality, but especially because of its vision of the Church as He once said “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security”[2] .Amoris Laetitia continues to develop Francis's ecclesiology in a very interesting direction of reform.

2.2 View of the Church as Collegial and Synodal

Ecclesiology of Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia views the Church as collegial and synodal. Francis quotes his first exhortation Evangelii Gaudium seventeen times, Vatican II's constitution on the Church in the modern world Gaudium et Spes nineteen times, but also ten documents of national bishops' conferences for examples; Spain, Korea, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, the council of the Latin American bishops, Italy and also of our own country here in Kenya.This is consistent with Francis's ecclesiology before Amoris Laetitia, but it is also a genuine development of the Bishops' Synod itself. What this new exhortation adds is the extensive use of the documents of the Bishops' Synod of 2014 and 2015.

It should also be noted that Pope Francis's predecessors used to quote from synodal documents, but in order to confirm what they wanted the Synod to say. That was part of most bishops' frustration with the Bishops' Synod as an institution but Pope Francis's Synods of 2014 and 2015 have been for the first time a real expression of a Church where episcopal collegiality is not just in the books such as in the Lumen Gentium and the rest, but is real (effective and not just affective) in which the Bishops and the Pope cooperate together to the maturation of the discernment of the Church over a particular issue as the councils described as “in the nature of a sacrament a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men and women”[3]

2.3 Inclusivity of the church in decision making.

Pope Francis's ecclesiology in Amoris Laetitia is an ecclesiology that sees the Church and society in constant dialogue and communication. It is an inclusive, radically non-sectarian ecclesiology. Church and people tend to be one in Francis's experience.This is new and really the ecclesiology of reform because the synodal process of Francis is something that never happened before: a synod in two steps and a synod with a real freedom of debate.Moreover, the ecclesiology of Francis is not just limited to episcopal collegiality, but it is trying to expand towards making other Christians to participate in the Church decision-making where by the laity must be involved in some way, as the Synods of 2014 and 2015 tried to do (with mixed results) by sending questionnaires to the Catholic faithful all over the world.Pope Francis thus invites families to be part of a larger society and to reject all forms of exclusion. He said that it is a Church that integrates all people, and "like the beacon of a lighthouse in a port or a torch carried among the people to enlighten those who have lost their way or who are in the midst of a storm" [4]. It is an ecclesiology of the parable of "the shepherd of the hundred, not just of the ninety-nine" He continued. Pope Francis is blunt in acknowledging the temptations of an exclusive ecclesiology in His writing.Pope Francis understands that to make the Church more inclusive it is necessary to get rid of the ideologization of Catholicism.

2.4 Historical and existential Ecclesiology

Ecclesiology of Pope Francis according to Amoris Laetitia can be understood as historical and existential. Pope Francis quotes several times from Evangelii Gaudium in order to remind us that “time is greater than space,” in an approach that invites us all to take a close look at reality. In paragraph 6 of Amoris Laetitia Pope Francis proposes to "examine the actual situation of families, in order to keep firmly grounded in reality"[5] in paragraph 7 he invites all of us to see ourselves in the weaknesses of families by saying that everyone should feel challenged.

The historical and existential ecclesiology of Francis is clear seen also in some key paragraphs where he emphasizes that the Church cannot try to impose rules by sheer authority but it is a Church that is humble and realistic. He continued that the Church is called to form consciences, not to replace them because a Church that cannot be "defensive, wasting pastoral energy on denouncing a decadent world without being proactive in proposing ways of finding true happiness"[6].This is the ecclesiology of Vatican II, but also an ecclesiology humbled by the fifty years of post-Vatican II humbled by a radical change in the role of religion and the Church in society, and by its own tragic mistakes, such as the sex abuse scandal, which is mentioned in Amoris Laetitia in the paragraph 45 that “the sexual abuse of children is all the more scandalous when it occurs in places where they ought to be most safe, particularly in families, schools, communities and Christian institutions."[7]It is a Catholic Church that in dealing with marriage and family understands that the defining issue for the Church today is not a matter of who, but a matter of where or in other words, it is the where the Church stands that defines the who of the Church.

2.5 Pope Francis’s Vision of the Church

2.5.1 Church as reconciler and of the heart.

In his address to the Brazilian bishops, Francis retells the story of the Madonna of Aparecida as a parable of the Latin American church. Tired fishermen, who have experienced failure in a dilapidated boat with old, torn nets, find a broken statue that must be mended. "Walls, chasms, differences which still exist today are destined to disappear. The church cannot neglect this lesson: She is called to be a means of reconciliation."[8]For Francis, faith enters the church through the heart of the poor, not through the heads of intellectuals. Francis confessed that perhaps we have reduced our way of speaking about mystery to rational explanations, but for ordinary people the mystery enters through the heart." This leads him to understand the missionary role of the church not as winning an argument but as offering something beautiful.

2.5.2 A church of Emmaus with a simple message.

Pope Francis could talked to the bishops using the gospel story about people who have left the church because they "now think that the church as their Jerusalem can no longer offer them anything meaningful and important." Perhaps the church appeared too weak, too distant from their needs, too poor to respond to their concerns and too cold.The world seems to have made the church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions, perhaps the church could speak to people in their infancy but not to those come of age.Faced with this Emmaus situation Pope Francis suggest that we need a church unafraid of going forth into their night. We need a church capable of meeting them on their way. Pope Francis urged these bishops, “Let us go forward on the path of synodality and grow in harmony with everybody”[9] We need a church capable of entering into their conversation. We need a church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren and fruitless soil but A church is capable of leading people back to Jerusalem by using well our apostolate and pastoral work.

2.5.3 Ecclesiology also focusing and pushing for Action on Climate Change

Pope Francis’ Ecclesiology of reform is not only for the human being but also for the environment around us.This was started when He released his second teaching letter, known as an encyclical. Entitled "Laudato Si'," it called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront climate change. It attributed environmental destruction to apathy, the reckless pursuit of profits, excessive faith in technology and political shortsightedness. It was not Pope Francis’ first push on the issue. Vatican officials were campaigning for world leaders to enact a sweeping United Nations climate change accord which was to take place in Paris in December. The accord would, for the first time, commit every nation to enact tough new laws to cut emissions that cause global warming.

3.0 CHALLENGES FACED BY POPE FRANCIS’S ECCLESIOLOGY OF REFORM

3.1 Continuing sex scandals.

The church's rolling sex abuse scandal has badly undermined the church's moral authority since the time of Pope Benedict xvi , and even tainted its most recent pontiff. We can begin to look back in 1981 when Benedict was Cardinal Ratzinger, the man in charge of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for investigating claims of sex abuse. He would later be the subject of a lawsuit by the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which claimed he either knew and/or some cases consciously disregarded information that showed subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes.The church hasn't come close to putting the scandal behind it up to now. This has made many researchers to found that, about 27 percent of those who left the church currently said that the sexual abuse scandals had influenced their decision. In confronting sexual abuse American Catholics in particular are desperate for Pope Francis to ride to the rescue of their Church, crippled in recent years by revelations about sexual and child abuse, and hammered by victims for damages in US courts that have bankrupted some dioceses. It appears to be a global problem for the church, and one that is driving some faithful into the arms of other churches like the Evangelists.

3.2 Women's demands for equality

Feminist organizations are really struggling to change the system within the Catholic Church. The day before a conclave of men picked Francis as the new pope, female protesters from the Women's Ordination Conference set off a pink smoke flare on a hill above the Vatican while proclaiming the message that he people of the church are desperate for a leader who will be open to dialogue and embrace the gifts of women's wisdom in every level of church governance. This kind of struggle will have to give our current Pope a hard time in cooling down the situation by taking the wise decision.

3.3 Challenges of Cleaning up the Vatican

The Vatican is long overdue for serious reform, as it has allegedly become a viper’s nest of careerism over calling, a pit of backstabbing and financial opacity, corruption and cronyism. History tells us that the last time any serious attempt was made to address this was in 1978 under John Paul I, who died suddenly after only 33 days in the job. Four years later one of the bosses of the Vatican bank, Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under a bridge in London. He had reportedly been on the brink of being sacked before the Pope’s untimely death, as John Paul I had made Vatican bank reform a priority. This similar accusation are also being made currently and Pope Francis is taking serious steps to eradicate them though it is not easy to resolve it.

3.4 Creating a 21st century priesthood and Religious.

The level of vocations to priesthood and religious life in Europe and America is going down,In Italy, at least, fewer and fewer young men are coming forward to take holy orders, but one group is clamouring to be let in women. Other Churches have decided to admit women, but the Vatican is still reticent. Should it allow priests to marry? Many say there would have been less sexual abuse in the past if priests had been allowed to live normal sexual as well as spiritual lives, and that this disconnection with half of the congregation does nothing to help make the Church relevant in the modern world. Those contemporary ecclesiological ideas will have to disturb Pope Francis while running the Catholic Church in this 21^st century.

3.4 The rapid moral challenges in the world

Pope Francis administration is currently facing serious challenges especially in taking decision or moral stand point in the line with Church Doctrine. Homosexuality, abortion, and birth control. These three topics have caused the church more grief over the years than almost everything else, and in Europe and the USA at least, opinion polls suggest the Church is out of step with most people’s views, which are broadly supportive of ending discrimination against homosexuals and allowing their union in marriage, allowing abortion, and ending the ban on contraception. Continued resistance against the above unholy acts has led to many leaving the Church altogether which is very unfortunate. So, Pope Francis will have to battle with those challenges until the end of His pontificate.

3.5 Combating extremism

One of the dangerous problems in the world today is combating extremism and terrorism.This is a tricky one for the Church, as while confronting Catholic fundamentalists is one thing, taking too aggressive a line against other religions almost immediately brings accusations of crusading. But the Church is facing increased pressure in some parts of the world where Christian minorities are suffering persecution, or even eradication, and not to act or stay silent is at once a betrayal of the faith and a sign of weakness. One way to tackle the problem is to engage with the world’s other religions, and while Francis’s predecessor rebuilt bridges with the Jewish faith, it was more a case of burning them with Islam with some ill-judged comments Pope Francis will struggle to erase.

4.0 OBSERVATION, PERSONAL REMARKS, SUGGESTION AND CONCLUSION

2.1 Observations

Pope Francis's Ecclesiology always emphasizes on mercy and love above all other things including dogma, which on the other hand may be misinterpreted by many conservative Catholic theologians as a violation of the "law and order" mentality of the self-appointed guardians of Catholic orthodoxy. For them Catholicism is unchangeable doctrine that cannot be contaminated by theological developments and by the idea of the pastorality of doctrine but Pope Francis responded to this kind of criticism at the end of the Synod of 2015 that "was about bearing witness to everyone that, for the Church, the Gospel continues to be a vital source of eternal newness, against all those who would indoctrinate it in dead stones to be hurled at others. It was also about laying closed hearts, which bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church's teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families. This has made some people to say that Pope Francis is not theological, but political that is why many attacks are not really about Francis's theology, but about the social and political consequences of Francis pontificate for an ideological interpretation of Catholicism.

In Francis ecclesiology of responsibility, even His fellow Bishops are not spared. He is holding Bishops More Accountable for several abuses in the Church. Pope Francis approved the creation of a Vatican tribunal for judging bishops accused of covering up or failing to act in cases of child sexual abuse by priests, a step long demanded by victims in the more than three decades that the Roman Catholic Church has publicly dealt with the abuse scandal. Until Francis, no pope had publicly confronted or demoted bishops accused of gross negligence.Meanwhile at the same time He is rewarding those Bishops who are struggling in ending the violence across the world.Pope Francis has chosen men who are involved in a daily battle with poverty, violence and religious conflict.For examples Dieudonne Nzapalainga, 49, has become the first cardinal from the war-torn Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world. He is also the youngest of the 229 members of the College of Cardinals.Nzapalainga is known as one of the “saints of Bangui” for his efforts to calm Muslim and Christian militia violence in a fight over the Central African Republic's important diamond and mineral resources. The same thing also in Bangladesh with Patrick D'Rozario, 73, who leads a small Catholic population in the country and lastly in Syria by appointing his Italian-born ambassador to Damascus, Mario Zenari, a cardinal. The Pope says the appointment shows his closeness to the “beloved and martyred Syria.”

2.2 Personal remarks and suggestion

According to me, Pope Francis’ecclesiology of reform especially in His Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia is very good really and practical in this contemporary situation. His ecclesiology is very relevance to us in doing pastoral work among people of God.It should also be noted that Amoris Laetitia is not a perfect document and there are ecclesiological emphases that reveal some weaknesses in Francis's perception of the complexities of the Church today. For examples those sections that sound painfully inadequate for a discourse on marriage and family but that should not stop us from appreciating the rich ecclesiological development of Pope Francis.We should also not forget that Amoris Laetitia is a document that challenges the status quo Ecclesiae not only in its moral theology, but also ecclesiologically that is, provoking a change in the way the Church thinks of itself and operates. The emphasis on mercy answers the question of whether Christianity is an abstract intellectual truth or a form of life, and Amoris Laetitia offers an even clearer response to that question.

However much we keep on criticizing Pope Francis ’ecclesiology of reform basing on the argument that (the indissolubility of marriage is ordained by God and therefore nonnegotiable) we need also to appreciate his pastoral advice to us especially where he emphasizes that “We need a church capable of rediscovering the maternal womb of mercy. Without mercy we have little chance nowadays of becoming part of a world of wounded persons in need of understanding, forgiveness and love”. If we do this, our church will continue to shine and overcome many challenges.

2.3 General conclusions

Generally Pope Francis’ Ecclesiology of Reform reveals that pastoral qualities is the high priority in selection Heads of the Church in this contemporary situation. Amoris Laetitia also entails a radically new understanding of the role of the bishop of Rome especially in handling the sensitive issues in the discussion of the college of Bishops which could change the direction of the church’s teaching. This was demonstrated when the Pope declared that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it hence love and mercy should always be on top of all our decisions being taken for the good of our brothers and sisters.

[1] Pope Francis, “Speech to Diplomats Accredited to the Vatican,” Origins 43 (January 30, 2014): 556.

[2] Thomas M. Kelly Understanding the ecclesiology of Pope Francis (Creighton University Press), Omaha,Nebraska 2013 95

[3] Quotations from documents of Vatican II are taken from Austin Flannery, O.P., ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, new revised edition, vol. 1 (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing, 1975).

[4] Pope Francis Amoris Laetitia (Post-Synodal Apostolic exhortation, Vatican Website,2016) 221.

[5] Ibid. 5

[6] Ibid.28

[7] Ibid.,35

[8] July 27 address to the Brazilian bishops 2013

[9] Pope Francis, “Homily at Mass Bestowing Pallium,” Origins 43 (July 11, 2013): 146.

NAME OF THE STUDENT:

OJOK CHURCHILL

FACULTY:

THEOLOGY

COURSE UNIT:

LITURGICAL MUSIC

TOPIC:

“THE SUMMARY OF THE VATICAN II TEACHING ON LITURGICAL MUSIC”

SUBMITTED TO:

REV. DR. PETRI ASSENGA A.J

ACADEMIC YEAR 20115/2016

THE CHURCH TEACHING ON SACRED MUSIC

(MUSICAM SACRAM AND SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM)

INTRODUCTION

In this paper I am going to summarize some of the main points and ideas put forwards by the Church in the Vatican II Document (Musicam Sacram) as part of the instruction on Music in the Liturgy and also according to the norms applied in “Sacrosanctum Concilium”.This is to solve one of the ongoing controversies in parishes about what kind of music and instruments are appropriate in the Mass. Fortunately, the experimentation of the past, when there were Rock Masses, Jazz Masses and even Polka Masses, seems for the most part over. Naturally, where there is no regard for the nature of the liturgy or the norms of the Church anything is still possible. Such “liturgies” (if they can be called that) are sometimes justified as what Vatican II was about, opening the windows, trying new things, using worldly forms.

SUMMARY OF THE CHURCH TEACHING ON SACRED MUSIC

The Council insistently called for the preservation of the traditions of the Latin Rite and the harmonization of any universal or local adaptations to that tradition and the nature of the sacred liturgy. Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the Bishop. The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.

Therefore sacred music is to be considered the more holy in proportion as it is more closely connected with the liturgical action, whether it adds delight to prayer, fosters unity of minds, or confers greater solemnity upon the sacred rites. But the Church approves of all forms of true art having the needed qualities, and admits them into divine worship.

Musican Sacram after the Council it fell to the Sacred Congregation of Rites (today called Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments) to apply the norms of Sacrosanctum Concilium in implementing documents touching on all the various areas of liturgical reform. In the area of liturgical music the implementing document is called Musicam sacram (Sacred Music). It establishes what can be called sacred music.

It is to be hoped that pastors of souls, musicians and the faithful will gladly accept these norms and put them into practice, uniting their efforts to attain the true purpose of sacred music, “which is the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful.” However some of the people’s song especially if the faithful have not yet been sufficiently instructed, or if musical settings for several voices are used, can be handed over to the choir alone, provided that the people are not excluded from those parts that concern them so that to maintain the complete inclusion of the people's participation in the singing without any difficulty.

According to the councilors, “sacred music” is understood that which, being created for the celebration of divine worship, is endowed with a certain holy sincerity of form. The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care. Choirs must be diligently promoted, especially in cathedral churches; but bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs.

The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as a specially suited to the Roman liturgy therefore, other things being equal ;it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action. In certain parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are peoples who have their own musical traditions, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. For this reason due importance is to be attached to their music, and a suitable place is to be given to it, not only in forming their attitude toward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius.

In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church's ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man's mind to God and to higher things. But other instruments also may be admitted for use in divine worship, with the knowledge and consent of the competent territorial authority. This may be done, however, only on condition that the instruments are suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, accord with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful.

Composers, filled with the Christian spirit, should feel that their vocation is to cultivate sacred music and increase its store of treasures. Let them produce compositions which have the qualities proper to genuine sacred music, not confining themselves to works which can be sung only by large choirs, but providing also for the needs of small choirs and for the active participation of the entire assembly of the faithful. The texts intended to be sung must always be in conformity with Catholic doctrine. Indeed they should be drawn chiefly from Holy Scripture and from liturgical sources.

The following come under the title of sacred music here: Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony in its various forms both ancient and modern, sacred music for the organ and other approved instruments, and sacred popular music, be it liturgical or simply religious. Thus, popular liturgical, or simply religious, music can be sacred if: It is created for worship, and it is endowed with a certain holy sincerity of form. This suggests that adapted secular tunes do not belong in the Mass, but that modern creations that have the described character can be used.

As for instruments, the same guiding document states, Musical instruments can be very useful in sacred celebrations, whether they accompany the singing or whether they are played as solo instruments. The pipe organ is to be held in high esteem in the Latin Church, since it is its traditional instrument, the sound of which can add a wonderful splendor to the Church's ceremonies and powerfully lift up men's minds to God and higher things."

The use of other instruments may also be admitted in divine worship, given the decision and consent of the competent territorial authority, provided that the instruments are suitable for sacred use, or can be adapted to it, that they are in keeping with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful. In permitting and using musical instruments, the culture and traditions of individual peoples must be taken into account. However, those instruments which are, by common opinion and use, suitable for secular music only, are to be altogether prohibited from every liturgical celebration and from popular devotions.

Any musical instrument permitted in divine worship should be used in such a way that it meets the needs of the liturgical celebration, and is in the interests both of the beauty of worship and the edification of the faithful.

According to The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2002), it emphasizes much about the documents “Musicam Sacram”, among others the following points were re-echoed : The celebration of the Eucharist, like the entire liturgy, involves the use of outward signs that foster, strengthen, and express faith.

There must be the utmost care therefore to choose and to make wise use of those forms and elements provided by the Church which, in view of the circumstances of the people and the place, will best foster active and full participation and properly serve the spiritual well-being of the faithful.

For the most part, these adaptations consist in the choice of certain rites or texts, that is, of liturgical songs, readings, prayers, introductory comments and gestures which may respond better to the needs, degree of preparation and mentality of the participants. Such choices are entrusted to the priest celebrant. Nevertheless, the priest must remember that he is the servant of the sacred Liturgy, and that he himself is not permitted, on his own initiative to add, remove or to change anything in the celebration of Mass.

The faithful who gather together to await the Lord's coming are instructed by the Apostle Paul to sing together psalms, hymns, and inspired liturgical songs (Colossians 3:16). Liturgical song is the sign of the heart's joy (Acts 2:46). We also hear from Saint Augustine who says rightly: “To sing belongs to lovers.” There is also the ancient proverb associated to Him that “One who sings well prays twice. “All things being equal, Gregorian chant should hold a privileged place, as being more proper to the Roman liturgy.

Other kinds of sacred music, polyphony in particular, are not in any way to be excluded, provided that they correspond with the spirit of the liturgical action and that they foster the participation of all the faithful. Since the faithful from different countries come together ever more frequently, it is desirable that they know how to sing at least some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, especially the profession of faith and the Lord's Prayer, set to simple melodies.

The gestures and posture of the priest, deacon and the ministers, as well as of the people should allow the whole celebration to shine with dignity and noble simplicity, demonstrating the full and true meaning of each of their diverse parts, while fostering the participation of all.

The greater attention needs to be paid to what is laid down by liturgical law and by the traditional practice of the Roman Rite, for the sake of the common spiritual good of the people of God rather than to personal inclination or arbitrary choice.[1]

CONCLUSION

Basing on the above Documents of the Church concerning the Sacred Music, it should be clear from the general norms, as well as from the norms governing specific parts of the Mass that while there is obviously an element of judgment on the part of bishops and priests as to what music and instruments to allow within the Mass, that this license does not extend to music and instruments of a purely secular nature which are not adaptable to the liturgy and its sacred character.

[1]Vatican II Document: Instruction on Music in the Liturgy (Musicam Sacram,5^th March 1967)